


In the Pursuit of Knowledge

by SoundandColor



Category: Hidden Figures (2016)
Genre: 1960s, Aliens Made Them Do It, Canon Compliant, Except For The Aliens, F/M, Infidelity, Mildly Dubious Consent, Post-Movie(s), Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-14 11:36:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13006959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SoundandColor/pseuds/SoundandColor
Summary: Everything, he’d told her.Everything people like us have ever wanted to know.





	In the Pursuit of Knowledge

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mardia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardia/gifts).



 

They lose contact with the ship for a less than a minute while John is on his second orbit of the Earth.

 

It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Nothing that hasn’t happened before, but… the quiet in the control room while they wait for him to check back in. Katherine couldn’t hear any static coming over the line, no noise of the ship’s instruments or interference of any kind. For a moment, the COMM emitted only a crystal-clear silence she knows their equipment isn’t sophisticated enough to produce.

 

Then it crackled back to life, John completed three orbits to raucous cheers before landing safely and the men went out to celebrate their accomplishment, patting themselves on the back and forgetting all about the woman who helped make it happen. She should go home to the girls, but it niggles at her. That 53 seconds claws into her brain the way a math problem can and in just the same way, it makes her bold. The room is empty, and Katherine goes to one of the stations, puts on a headset. She rolls back the tape and pulls up the transmissions.

 

She listens to it again, then a second and third time. Still nothing.

 

Nothing but perfect silence.

 

\---

 

There’s something just _slightly_ off about him now.

 

She keeps her eyes open over the next few months. He’s always been warm, ambitious, happy, whip smart, motivated—he wouldn’t have made it this far if he wasn’t—but there’s something else now. A distance. A feeling that, even when that 1000 watt smile is pointed in your direction, his mind is someplace else.

 

So, she’s surprised when he shows up to Langley the last day of work before they shut the building for Christmas holiday wearing a Santa hat and holding two bottles of champagne.

 

“In the middle of the day?” Ruth asks with a beaming smile at the sight of him.

 

“Why not? You folks deserve a glass for all your hard work.”

 

Ruth laughs; glasses and mugs and paper cups appear from desk drawers and cabinets. One glass turns into more, then someone orders food and a radio appears and when John holds his hand out to her, Katherine’s a glass and a half in and takes it without a second thought. He’s charming, she can’t deny that, and the boy’s got moves. She lets out a surprised laugh when he spins her, his cup of champagne safe and secure in his other hand, a broad grin painted across his face.

 

When the song switches over to something slower, she expects him to let her go. Instead, he straightens his back and leads her across the floor in a neat box step waltz. She remembers learning this in gym class her senior year of high school. How exciting it was to have some boy’s clammy hand clutching hers tightly as they stumbled across the floor.

 

This is different.

 

He’s confident as he helps her into position and they glide across the floor together like they’ve been partners for years. He dips her back shallowly, pulls her up close to his chest and she lays her palm against his ribs. When she looks up at him, they’re both grinning.

 

It takes her too long to realize that the people watching them have gone quiet, that their smiles have begun to slip.

 

Katherine steps back out of his hold smoothly. “Thank you for the dance, Mr. Glenn. I haven’t waltzed in years.” She’s turned on her heel and walking away before he has the chance to reply.

 

“Mrs. Johnson,” she hears him call after her.

 

She doesn’t look back.

 

\---

 

Katherine’s already in her nightclothes when she leaves Jim in their bed late that same night. She can’t sleep. She grabs a Ballantine from the fridge, pops the cap and takes a long pull before stepping out onto the porch. She has another sip and sets the bottle down on the banister. Then she notices someone out of the corner of her eye.

 

She turns and, for the first time in Katherine’s life, she’s shocked speechless.

 

“I couldn’t bring myself to knock,” John says. Swaying slightly on her porch swing. “I thought, I’ll sit here for 10 minutes and if she comes out, that’ll mean something.” He faces her, the top three buttons of the white dress shirt he was wearing earlier in the day are undone. He looks like he’s been drinking and is now on a hard downswing.

 

She steps closer, and notices him noticing her. That’s when Katherine remembers what she’s wearing. A butter yellow nightdress that ends mid-thigh and doesn’t leave much to the imagination. She’s got a drawer full of them in every color. The filmy peignoirs are Katherine’s only indulgence. Something she’d enjoyed long before James and Jim came along and heightened her pleasure for wearing them.

 

His eyes drift down toward her neckline and she pulls the sheer, matching robe tightly closed for all the good it does. His gaze pops back up to her face, guilty. She almost wants to laugh at how absurd this is when she hears a cabinet open and close. They both freeze, listening as someone moves through the kitchen, then goes back into a room. She hears the girls erupt into giggles not long afterward.

 

“Is it—”

 

“Just one of the girls sneaking cookies, most likely,” she says quickly. She doesn’t want to hear her husband’s name in John’s mouth. They stare at one another quietly. This man should not be in her neighborhood. This man should not be staring at her in the dark. A car door slams a few houses over and Katherine steps closer, pulls him up and into a dark corner of the porch. Her eyes scan the street and she breathes out a sigh of relief to find it empty.

 

She’s so focused on listening, on not being seen, that it takes her a second to feel his hand low on her back. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he says, and she feels a ridiculous thrum of electricity begin to warm her. “Since that first day on the introduction line. Since I found out who you are. What you can do.”

 

Katherine let’s that sit between them for a moment. “Why are you here, John?” She finally asks.

 

He shoves his hands in his pockets and leans back against the wall. “I didn’t ask anyone where you live if that’s what you’re worried about.”

 

She doesn’t bother responding to that, Katherine just crosses her arms over her chest and waits him out.

 

“I’m in trouble,” he admits. Looking down.

 

She watches him, wonders why he would come to her when they barely know each other. When he’s got friends in much higher places than she’ll ever reach. The smart part of her knows she should tell him to leave. Instead she asks, “What kind of trouble?”

 

John laughs lowly. “Those 52 seconds.”

 

Her mind goes completely blank and, for a moment, she has absolutely no idea what he’s talking about. Katherine almost says as much when it comes back to her, that minute of quiet. A silence so crystal clear she couldn’t get it out of her head, but that was all the way back in February. Months ago.

 

“You weren’t the only one who noticed,” he goes on. “But you were the only one who wanted to figure it out. You’re the only one who looked for an answer.”

 

She’d searched without knowing what she was looking for a week straight afterward. She still pulled the audio file up every now and then, when she had a moment. Just to see if something came to her. If something changed. “How do you know about that?” Katherine asks, feeling something between embarrassment and annoyance.

 

He studies her, then answers flatly. “They told me.”

 

Katherine blinks _. “_ They?”

 

He doesn’t speak, just looks off into the middle distance, back ramrod straight. That’s when she knows. She knows exactly what he can’t bring himself to say.

 

_They_

 

A bigger part of her than she wants to admit isn’t shocked by this. Katherine attends church every Sunday, she honestly believes in a higher power, but she’s also an educated woman. She knows there is so much more in this galaxy than the couple million species that sprouted up on one blue planet.

 

That side of her understands. The other part recoils.

 

“I didn’t know what was happening at first,” he goes on when she doesn’t immediately kick him off her porch. “Then I saw…” it’s hard to describe the look on his face then. Dreamy, frightened, excited and scared all at once.

 

He swallows and focuses on her. “You believe me.” He says, laughing and loose, the way he used to be before. “I haven’t told anyone, not even Annie. I was afraid they’d lock me up, but I knew you’d understand. You’re the most brilliant person I know. You’re the only one I trusted to get me up there and back. You’re the only I thought could actually believe me.”

 

“I don’t believe anything,” she interjects quickly. This is insane. If he was anyone else, she’d say so, but John is one of the smartest men she’s ever met. What would he get from admitting to something like this besides a lifetime of ridicule?

 

“You have questions,” he murmurs like he can see inside of her head. Like he knows. “So did I. They—”

 

“Stop.”

 

He quiets immediately, and she knows she should really ask him— _tell him_ —to leave now, but there’s that niggle again. Katherine has never bought into the idea that curiosity killed the cat. Curiosity has propelled humanity toward the light bulb, the motor vehicle, it leads the both of them to the stars. “I can’t just leave…”

 

She’s given herself away and John leaps for the opening. “I’ll bring you back as soon as you say the word. They’ll never even know you were gone.”

 

“You said there was trouble.”

 

“I don’t think they’ll hurt us,” he clarifies quickly. “But when I saw them, when they _spoke_ to me. I said yes, and I didn’t think about the cost.”

 

 _He thinks_ . This is ridiculous. She should not even be considering it, but if he’s telling the truth. If he actually saw something up there, if they share whatever they know with her as well. John and Katherine’s impact on science, on math, on space travel, on human culture itself could be incalculable. _If_ they make it back. Only if.

 

She looks up into his eyes. “What did they tell you?”

 

“Everything,” he says with that indescribable look on his face again. “Everything people like us have ever wanted to know.”

 

She doesn’t bother grabbing her coat before they leave.

 

\---

 

They don’t speak for the 30-minute drive because she doesn’t need to ask where they’re going. The coast. She remembers taking this same route with Jim and the girls this past summer. They turn down a dark street and pull up onto a lookout point, the beach spread below them.

 

He kills the engine. Then they wait.

 

Five minutes, ten minutes. She’s about to ask him what happens now when she hears something in the back seat. A sound. A smooth whir that makes her chest go tight. There’s no flying saucer, no bright beam of light. They’re simply alone, then they’re not. She reaches across the bench seat and grabs John’s arm.

 

She doesn’t— _won’t_ —turn around and look at it, but she can just make out its shape in the windshield. Small and pale. She only realizes she’s digging her nails into John’s forearm when he puts his hand over hers. To calm her.

 

 _He’s trying to calm her down_. She’s not guessing or assuming, she knows it. Like she knows he’s scared, anxious. They’re doing something to her, to the both them. Opening their minds, broadening their awareness. she can feel it stretching against the back of her seat and Katherine struggles to catch her breath.

 

She knows what they want to happen next.

 

He does, too.

 

His eyes wide, so blue she can still see them in the dark. “I didn’t know,” he pleads. It doesn't matter, it's too late anyway. She imagines herself reaching for the door, making a run for it. She can already feel the sand beneath her feet. Maybe she’d even get away.

 

Then she looks at John and It’s easier than it should be to slide across the seat into his arms, instead.

 

“We don’t—” she kisses him before he can finish, sucks his bottom lip into her mouth and feels him fight against his urge to pull her closer. She does it for him. Gets up onto her knees and lays across his lap. For a little while, all they do is kiss. He moves from her mouth to her neck, runs his hand lightly across the side of her breast.

 

He lays her back against the seat, watches her face as he shifts her nightgown up her thighs and she knows this was inevitable. That they would have always ended up here. They’ve been in the wrong from the very beginning, but for the first time, Katherine _feels_ wrong. Feels like a liar.

 

She feels good, too though and the way touching _her_ makes _him_ feel multiplies that by a thousand. Katherine drags her hand between them and tries to take his measure, unzips his pants and pulls them down over his backside. He touches her lightly and she bucks up against his palm. She can feel him, hard and leaking, against her thigh. She spreads her legs wider and guides him inside.

 

Then something heavy, sticky and wet wraps around her arm. She can’t even scream when she opens her eyes and sees it. Glistening white, translucent skin. No discernible eyes, no discernible mouth. It’s almost iridescent, even in the dim light. She’s transfixed by the sight of veins pulsing inside of it for a moment. _Beautiful_. Then more tentacles appear from the back seat, slipping across her breast, circling his arms, sliding between their legs, covering her face.

 

She can’t move, she can’t breathe. It makes that whirring sound again, so low she feels it more than hears it and suddenly, it’s like a locked door getting blown off its hinges.

 

Bright light bursts behind her eyes. She can feel every hair on her body stand on end. A tear falls unnoticed down her cheek. A grin: brighter than when the girls were born, than her first kiss with James, than when she married Jim, than seeing her mother’s face so proud and happy from the stage after getting her diploma breaks out across Katherine’s face.

 

 _Everything_ , he’d told her. _Everything people like us have ever wanted to know._

 

\---

 

Katherine wakes up splayed out on the living room couch with a gasp. She doesn’t remember how she got home. Joylette watches her from the floor by the coffee table, her pencil hanging in mid-air. “You okay, momma?”

 

“I have to—” Katherine doesn’t bother finishing her thought. She jumps up, snags the girl’s pencil and notebook and stumbles toward the kitchen table. “Hey!” she yells, but Katherine barely hears.  

 

She starts writing.

 

Lunch passes. Then dinner, then bedtime. Jim comes home, kisses her forehead and says good evening. He chuckles when she doesn’t respond. Later, he asks if she’s coming to bed and sighs when she doesn’t look up. He turns off every light except the one she’s using.

 

Katherine keeps writing.

Later, when she’s in bed, Jim snoring slightly beside her, it snags in her mind the way that 52 seconds of silence did. The way a good math problem can. The one thing she never asked herself. Why? Why would they give them this? This knowledge, _this power_? Were they curious about what would happen? Did they want to try and help the fledgling human race better itself? Did they have other, darker reasons?

 

Whatever they did that allowed them to read her and John without speaking, whatever bond they forged, went both ways. She knows they took samples of the obvious things: blood, hair and fluids. They measured her vitals, her responses to John and his to her. Their emotions. They were inquisitive about their pleasure. Mindful of their pain. But there was no connection. No empathy.

 

She owes them a debt that she will have to repay, but Katherine can’t shake the memory of how cold their skin was. How they touched her and felt nothing.

 

\---

 

She imagined she’d write about the things they told her. Those notes she so furiously scribbled down the morning after. Instead, they have remained in a safe at the bottom of her closet. She tries, at first, to make direct change. To make them understand. She’s subtle, she never mentions where the ideas came from, she doesn’t say anything about beings from another planet, about empathetic connections, about affairs with an American hero.

 

Unfortunately, the messenger is often more important than the message and her words fall on deaf ears.

 

That first month is one of the loneliest, angriest times in her life.

 

Then she, like always, pulls herself back up. She turns that anger, that desire to help, toward work. She gets promoted, receives a special achievement award, publishes some papers and steadily moves up the ranks. It’s not what she thought it would be, but there’s still things to achieve. To aspire to. After all, Katherine has been to the stars—and if the rumors are true—soon she’ll go to the moon.

 

One night, in a motel just off the beach, John tells her that he’s leaving NASA, he’s set his sights on Congress. She feels a bitter twist in her gut that the option isn’t open to her, but she knows he’ll do good work there and make the job on her end easier.

  
He runs his hand down her naked back, kisses the side of her throat and laughs as she pushes and pulls him into a position more comfortable for her to lay against. They don’t speak again, they’re listening to the waves, they’re thinking of _Them._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for looking this over for me, oxymora.


End file.
